HMS_Constance_(1846)
HMS Constance (1846)
Frigate of the Royal Navy
HMS Constance was a 50-gun fourth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched on 12 May 1846. She had a tonnage of 2,132 and was designed with a V-shaped hull by Sir William Symonds.[1][2] She was also one of the last class of frigates designed by him.[3] On her shakedown voyage from England to Valparaiso she rounded Cape Horn in good trim, her captain for this voyage being Sir Baldwin Wake Walker, who commented "I think her a good sea boat, and a fine man of war". On the voyage she encountered a hurricane at 62° south. Walker wrote that "nothing could have exceeded the way she went over it, not even straining a rope yarn".[4] In August 1848, her captain George William Courtenay, for whom the town of Courtenay was named,[5] led 250 sailors and marines from Fort Victoria to try to intimidate the Indians.[6]
In 1848, she became the first Royal Naval vessel to use Esquimalt as her base.[7]
In 1859, she was involved in the bombardment of Dwarka in the state of Gujarat in north western India.
In 1862, she was converted to screw propulsion using a compound steam engine[8] designed by Randolph & Elder.[9] She was the first Royal Naval ship to be fitted with this class of engine, and won a race against two frigates from Plymouth to Madeira in 1865.[10]
Her crew and officers were quarantined aboard whilst berthed at Port Royal on 26 October 1867 during an outbreak of Yellow Fever[11]